Aquaponics is an innovative smart and sustainable production system for integrating aquaculture with hydroponic vegetable crops, that can play a crucial role in the future of environmental and socio-economic sustainability in smart cities. Aquaponics can play a key role enabling local production with short supply chains in the cities. This contributes to sustainable production addressed in SDG 12 as well as the connection to SDG 2.

Lucy Ajok, a 34 year old Ugandan farmer, gives Farmers Weekly an insight into her rural life. Lucy is a single mother of five children and lives on a three-acre farm practising mixed farming. Farming families dependent on family labour, like Lucy's, are typically the poorest in Uganda, and often have the additional challenge of HIV. This interview shares some of the challenges faced in achieving SDG 1 and SDG 2.

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The role of agriculture in flood risk mitigation has been largely overlooked in the UK government’s national flood resilience review. Farm leaders are concerned that the review contains little mention of agriculture, rural communities or food security. This highlights the need to address flood risk mitigation holistically to support SDG 13.1 to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters, and SDG 2.4 to implement resilient agricultural practices that strengthen capacity for adaptation to climate change, including flooding.

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Israeli startup tech firm SuperMeat is attracting substantial crowd funding to support its development of chicken meat grown in a laboratory. This technological solution could open the door to an affordable and sustainable source of human food. Developing sustainable sources of conventional meat will contribute to the advancement of SDG 12.2 to achieve sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources in the food sector and address SDG 2 zero hunger.

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Paul Anastas and Julie Zimmerman highlight the vital role chemistry must play in creating a sustainable future. The article provides a robust definition for green chemistry and examines the role of green chemistry in supporting the SDGs, with a particular focus on the goals addressing water, poverty and food: SDGs 1, 2, 6 and 12.

One of the most important consequences of climate change could be its effects on agriculture and subsequent global food availability. This modelling study is the first quantitative analysis of the global health implications of dietary and weight changes in view of climate change and agricultural production. It estimates the excess mortality attributable to agriculturally mediated changes by cause of death for 155 world regions in the year 2050. Authors warn that climate change mitigation will be key to preventing climate-related deaths through food insecurity and thereby demonstrating the linkages between SDG 3 and SDG 13.

Food security is enshrined in SDG2 and is also a core component of the human development and capability paradigm, since food access and entitlements are critical for reinforcing essential human capabilities. This paper argues that agriculture is central to improving food security and reducing poverty in Africa, requiring rapid increases in land productivity and increases in agricultural yields. A science-based approach that integrates gender and sustainability is critical to design and implement policies that improve the availability of farm inputs and farm technology.

This brief article discusses why food procurement—the purchase, preparation, and serving of food in public institutions—is a promising strategy to improve the diet and nutritional health of vulnerable populations. With mounting evidence in high-income countries of the benefits of healthy-food procurement in tackling undernourishment, overnourishment, and chronic diseases associated with the latter such as type 2 diabetes, the challenge now is to translate the lessons learned to middle-income and low-income countries, thereby supporting the goals of SDGs 2, 3, and 12.

Food insufficiency is an important, modifiable risk factor for depression. The authors investigate this association using longitudinal data from South Africa. Food insufficiency has a strong association with depressive symptoms. This paper addresses Goal 2 and Goal 3

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This report offers a framework for principle-based collaboration between business, the UN, governments, civil society and other stakeholders in relation to soil management and the entire agricultural value chain. It directly supports SDG 2 and SDG 15.